Still just 22-years-old, Daniel Wiffen is taking an astonishing year in his stride as he continues to build towards the Paris Olympics.
By any measure, Wiffen has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the last 12 months in the pool.
The Irish Olympian served notice to everyone in December of 2022 when he became the first Irish swimmer to set a new world record, shaving 2.96 seconds off Grant Hackett's time in the 800m freestyle short-course.
Wiffen followed up that feat by winning gold in the 1500m freestyle at the European under-23 Championships along with silver in the 800m and 400m events. Then came a trio of gold medals in the 1500m, 800m and 400m at the European Short-Course championships.
With expectations duly raised, Wiffen smashed them last month at the World Championships in Doha, when he claimed gold in the 1500m and 800m freestyle and walked off with the best male swimmer award from the event.
Speaking during a well-earned rest week, Wiffen is quick to move on from the achievements of the last year and is insistent that the Paris Olympics are his sole focus now.
"We're starting back next week, I'm on a week off at the moment, but I'm looking forward to it," he said. "We getting back to camp straight away the, going straight to altitude, but yeah, I think it's going to be a good prep.
"We've got five months until the Olympics, so we've still got a long time and there's some technique aspects that we need to change that we learned from World Championships, so that's what I'm looking forward to."
"Paris has always been the goal since the last Olympics. We've been on this three-year journey of what steps we need to hit on the way, and I think Paris is going to be very fun for me."
Displaying a self-belief and confidence that could veer towards arrogance in a less likeable athlete, the 22-year-old admits that while his gold medals at Doha may have painted a target on his back, it’s one he finds easy to ignore.
"There's no added pressure from me on my results from the World Championships because I always thought in my head I was going to become a world champion anyway," he said.
"We’ve always had this three-year [cycle] to build towards Paris and yeah, the goal is the same as it was before the World Championships.
"Obviously Paris is going to be different, it’s the end of a three-year cycle of the Olympics but all I want to do is keep going and keep going.
"As soon as I come off the back of a championships, I just want to go straight back to training because I know there’s more in me.
"I don’t think I really ever celebrate that much. The night after the night I won the 1500m I had a good time and I was celebrating with my friends and family but as soon as that was over, the next day I was like 'let’s go back to training, we’ve got stuff to work on.'"
While Wiffen’s achievements in Doha saw him move into the truly elite realm of world swimming, his two most likely rivals for gold in Paris were absent from the event.
America’s Bobby Finke and Australian Sam Short both opted to side-step the World Championships given the extremely short turn around between that event and the Olympics.
While Wiffen admits that Finke and Short are two of the largest obstacles he will have to overcome in Paris, he’s not overly concerned by their reputations.
"Yeah 100%," when asked if Finke and Short will be his biggest competition this summer. "There’s only seven people who are separated by three seconds on their personal best.
"After the world champs, there was people saying that they [Finke and Short] were missing but I beat the previous world champion so that doesn’t really matter if you go and beat the person that won the last time."
With so much time spent in and around the swimming pool, carving out some down time can be difficult, but Wiffen is successfully turning his day job into a successful side-gig.
Along with his twin brother Nathan, who is also hoping to secure his spot in Team Ireland for the summer games, Wiffen operates a popular YouTube channel where they give an entertaining glimpse of just what it takes to be an elite competition swimmer.
From training tips to world record analysis, the twins are an entertaining duo who clearly relish the work and effort it takes to produce their video content.
"I just enjoy it," Wiffen said. "I started off doing it because my mum wanted to see what we were doing when we were training down in Dublin.
"We then carried it on because everyone other person I train with, and their squads, their parents want to see what they’re doing.
"Now we keep it up because a load of people watch it and they just want to see how an elite athlete would train.
"Me and Nathan, we work really hard together and we do everything towards it together.
"I guess we do like being in the limelight with the YouTube channel but it’s really just about inspiring next generations for us and trying to show people what they could be become or what it’s like to train with world champions."
Having promised to regularly update the channel with behind the scenes videos from the summer’s games, we may yet see just how you win Olympic gold.
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